


the sister act - i

by forochel



Series: mari fic [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Humor, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11888679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: Mari adopts yet another little brother: the story of Mari and Yurio bonding over being kindred prickly spirits.(Companion to(Don't) Give a Damn; set during the week that Yurio gatecrashed Hasetsu)





	the sister act - i

**Author's Note:**

> verity is a russifying/russofying/slavicising mage who made all dedushka plisetsky & yurio dialogue 100% more accurate.
> 
> \+ I REALLY LOVE ONE OK ROCK. so mari does too. so sayeth I. pls click on the link to the perf in-text. you won't regret it.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Just as Mari had got used to the _idea_ of having Viktor around, a stormy hurricane blew in.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


She only discovered later, in the spaces between what Yuuri related to her, how exactly this hurricane had announced itself:

"He's so young!" she said to Yuuri on Yurio’s second night in Hasetsu.

The kid’s day had apparently featured Viktor taking him to a temple for some good old-fashioned encouragement by way of _keisaku_. Mari honestly hadn’t expected Viktor to take her seriously when she jokingly suggested it in passing. "I didn't realise — Westerners really look older, huh?"

"Ah," said Yuuri, who had apparently had six long years in America to get used to this: the way Westerners all thought he was only a teenager, and the way his beautiful friends from college graduated and then kind of just ...well. Mari’d seen the facebook photos. "Yes, but Yurio is quite small for his age."

"Small!" harrumphed Mari. Yuuri's towered over her since he had the dreaded growth spurt in the summer before he turned seventeen, and Yurio would surely grow to be taller than even him. Yurio was taller than Mari, even now. "Well, how did he get here? Kaasan wants to know. She's worried about him."

Yuuri laughed awkwardly, in the way that meant he was trying to figure out how to omit certain uncomfortable truths. "Ah, he just turned up at Ice Castle. Right when I arrived, actually!"

"Oh?" asked Mari, raising the sisterly eyebrow of doom at him. She had many in her repertoire, and this one rated at Quite Effective. "The triplets were there, I remember Yuuko saying that today’s a rest day at the kindergarten. And lots of Viktor's vultures. How did he get through? Since he's so small."

She watched Yuuri squirm internally. Whilst she and Yuuri had been clearing out Yurio's room-to-be — at least before Yuuri had typically got lost in his head and run off again — they’d tromped past the living room that Viktor and Yurio had been dining in many times. She'd heard enough of Viktor's teasing tones and Yurio's loud outbursts to understand that the boy's angelic face belied his true nature.

Mari didn't understand anything they were saying, but she could read tone as well as any service industry professional.

"He's very ...” Yuuri visibly searched for the words, before settling on: “Confident. So he had no problems getting to the front door."

Right on cue, Yurio's voice rose sharply up from where he and Viktor had taken over the smaller sitting room again, eating the warabimochi that had been today’s house dessert.

"And loud," Yuuri added. "And, um, explosive?"

Considering how the boy had reacted when Mari had jokingly dubbed him 'Yurio', explosive seemed like an understatement. Gangster in the making, really.

Reminded her of herself as a kid.

"I get it," Mari said, and hefted up one side of the small _chabudai_ that they were going to try and squeeze into the corner of the 6 mat storage room Yurio had commandeered, nodding at Yuuri to lift the other. As he bent down, the back of his shirt lifted slightly, and — Mari almost let go of the table. _Bruises? In ... the shape of a foot?_ But Yuuri seemed unsuspecting and was moving freely. 

"Let's move this over to the corner," she said instead, and they did so, stepping carefully over the teenaged-boy debris that had spread over the small floorspace in one night. 

Later that night, she knocked on Yuuri’s door. Yuuri’s Russian guests seemed like they’d already gone to sleep; there was no light or movement from behind the sliding doors.

“Neechan?” Yuuri opened the door, looking tired — he’d gone stress-running _again_ — and dishevelled. His glasses were missing and there was a pillow crease on his cheek. It meant nothing; she’d seen him lying sideways in bed on his phone into the wee hours before.

Mari held out the pot of liniment she’d unearthed from the medicine cabinet. “For your back.” 

“Ah.” Yuuri flushed, and unconsciously touched a hand to the faint mottling on the small of his back, hidden underneath his t-shirt. Fumbling as he took the small lacquered pot from her, he said, “Th-thank you, neechan.” 

“Mmm.” She stood there, hand resting lightly against the jamb, looking at Yuuri. “Do you need my help?” 

Again, Yuuri brushed a hand across his back. “There’s no need, thank you.” 

“All right then,” said Mari, and knocked her knuckles against the doorjamb twice before turning to go. “Get some rest, Yuuri. You’ve got a busy week coming up ahead.”

  
  
  


* * *

 

On the very first night Yurio had appeared (Mari suspected her brother was some kind of Russian catnip), her parents had delegated to her the task of making sure he hadn’t kidnapped himself to Japan.

But again: Mari had a lot of shit going on, now with her future brother-in-law in residence. The ongoing shortage of tableware, thanks to that rowdy bachelorette party from Hong Kong. And an underaged kid with no apparent chaperone. 

And Russia was hours behind Japan.

So she put it off until Yurio’s storage room was properly habitable (it literally hadn’t been used since her grandparents had converted the upper floors of the secondary building into private family residences), and Yurio’d spread his belongings all over his new table in record time and slammed the shoji door shut behind him.

She really should start charging for damages. 

Anyway, once that was done, Mari went to look for Viktor. Yuuri having gone stress-running again, Viktor had apparently migrated from the family area to the public dining room, where he was attempting to talk to a few of the regulars. 

The gregarious ossans were valiantly trying to chat back.

It was like listening to someone chant a Buddhist sutra in a horse’s ear, except Mari wasn’t sure who was the monk and who the horse here. Saving old Hasegawa-san from the wasted effort of trying to educate Viktor about the history of Sagan Tosu through Japanese and a handful of English ( _sa-kkaaaa! ku-ro-ssu! four-four-two!_ ), Mari waved for Viktor’s attention.

“Ah, uh, _sumimasen_ ,” Viktor bowed apologetically to the grinning ossans before turning to her. “Mari-san! Can I help you?” 

“Yeah,” said Mari, tapping her nails against her phone. “About Yurio —”

Viktor tilted his head, concern stealing onto his face. 

“— my parents, they want to check if his family knows that he is here? He is underaged for travelling alone, you know.”

“Oh,” Viktor said, surprised. “It’s fine if they don’t, you know. Yura can take care of himself.” 

The light tone of his voice and the brush-off made her stare. 

“Wait, they _didn’t know he was coming_?” Mari asked incredulously. “How did he even get the money to — okay, never mind, I don’t want to know. Just tell me who to call.” 

Viktor hmmed, brows furrowed. She didn’t know why _he_ hadn’t called anyone yet. Actually —

“Wait, have you called anyone yet?” 

He looked up at her, one aristocratic eyebrow arched. “No, Yakov knows.”

Yakov, Mari had gathered from years of Yuuri being her younger brother and the way his name had popped up in conversation between Viktor and Yurio, was probably their coach. Well, Viktor’s ex-coach.

“Okay,” Mari said in her most patient tones. “But do his parents know?”

At that, Viktor looked away, a shadow suddenly coming over his face. Then he unfolded himself from his seat. Mari took a step back — gods, he was _tall_.

“My phone,” he said vaguely, gesturing to an empty table on the other side of the dining hall; the pink case was bright against a forest green _zabuton_. “I’ll give you his grandfather’s number.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


She ambushed Yuuri the next morning as he was sleepily mixing his natto with his rice.

“Yuu-chan,” she said, stirring the cauldron of miso soup. 

He looked up in bleary alarm. “Y-yes?” 

Giving the soup one last swirl, she turned to the kitchen table and picked up her own bowl of rice. “Is your back better?” 

Yuuri blinked at her, once, twice. Very, very slowly. Ah, it was like he was six again. 

“Mmm.” He took a sip of his beloved barley tea. “The, ah, paste helped. Thanks, neechan.” 

Mari chewed thoughtfully on her piece of saba. “Sometimes, Yuu-chan, you're too nice, you know?”

“Eh?” 

"That punk, Yurio. He has a cute face but a horrible personality. Don’t let him push you around, little brother." She grinned at him. “That’s my job.”

“You don’t!” Yuuri protested in a sudden burst of honest energy. 

“That’s nice,” said Mari. “But seriously, what I said.”

Yuuri seemed to be waking up to the weight of the conversation. 

“Aaaah, why do you have to do this now?” He whined a bit. “But he won’t — I mean, it’s just the way he is, right? I don’t mind.”

It was too early in the morning for Mari to restrain the eyeroll. “That’s because you’re too nice.”

"No, no,” Yuuri put his chopsticks down to wave his hands about. “I ... this sounds weird, but I understand why he’s here.” And then he huffed out a slightly unhappy laugh that made Mari want to go out and kill something with her bare hands. “Why wouldn’t he want ...”

Mari _hmmph_ ed. “Well, you’re going to fight for what you want too, right?” 

Yuuri nodded and blinked stickily again, yawning a little around his words. “Yes, of course.” There was a determined glint in his eyes as he picked his chopsticks back up. 

Satisfied, Mari turned away to check on the pot of miso. Both their days would start very soon.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


In the lull between prep for lunch and the actual lunch service, Mari nervously went through the corridor to the private residence to use their landline, mentally rehearsing her script.

She settled herself in the main family room, took a deep breath, and dialled the numbers that Viktor’d given her. 

“Hello, uh,” Mari swallowed, hoping Yuri’s grandfather could speak English. “Mr Plisetsky?”

“да?” The voice over the line was a little hoarse, growly like a bear. Mari might be projecting Russian stereotypes onto an old man she’d never met before. “Yes, who is this?”

“Oh, uh, I’m Katsuki Mari, calling from Japan about your grandson? Yurio — Yuri,” she hurriedly corrected herself.

“Japan!” He sounded surprised. “Why is Yura in Japan? I call Yakov...”

“Oh, he’s, uh, Viktor’s here,” Mari tried explaining even as she was sorting the facts out in her head. “For ... Yuuri, and I guess Yuri - Yura?” She was so confused. “He followed Viktor here. Oh, and Yakov knows,” she added.

Mr Plisetsky made some sort of explosive harrumph. “Oh, Yakov knows? Okay, then.”

She blinked. Perhaps this Yakov was to Yurio what Minako was to Yuuri. 

“Yes, we were just worried that his family would not know where he is.” A thought occurred to her. “Didn’t Coach Yakov tell you?”

“Ahh, I very busy and maybe I miss his call ...” There was a pause as Yurio’s grandfather trailed off. Mari wondered how she was going to end the call; international minutes were _expensive_. “Oh! I hear wrong maybe — my English not so good, sorry. You say two Yuris? Viktor is in Japan, and Yura follow him?”

“No, Yuuri. _Yuuuuu_ ri.” Mari dragged out the yuu of her brother’s name. “Katsuki Yuuri, skater.” 

“Oh! Japanese skater!” And then Plisetsky-san laughed. “Yura must be so happy!”

“Uh,” she said. That would ... not be how she’d describe Yurio’s emotional state. 

“You are sister of skater Katsuki? So he is in same house as Katsuki Yuuri?” 

Mari pulled the telephone cord straight and let it bounce back into its coils. “...yes?” 

Plisetsky-san laughed again, a great hoarse rumble. “Yura is like cat, but he is very happy.” Then he lowered his voice, as though Yuri-Yurio-Yura might hear. “I not say, but he have poster of your brother.”

Mari paused. Processed. And then grinned. 

“Is that so,” she said, failing mostly at suppressing her glee. 

“да.” The unadulterated gladness for Yurio in Mr Plisetsky’s voice made Mari smile. And then it turned conspiratorial, “Oh, Miss Katsuki, I have question — you can help? It is for Yura, um, present?” 

“Okay,” said Mari, an idea coming into her mind. “Do you have email, Mr Plisetsky?”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


So she watched. It wouldn’t do for her to beat up someone thirteen years younger than her, no matter how uncannily they resembled Golden Takao, and in any case that was all in the past. Plisetsky-ojisan told her about Russian vodka, and she gave him daily updates about his grandson.

Yurio had apparently helped Yuuri out with something, the day after Viktor’d gone to Fukuoka and come back still half-drunk on the first morning train. Mari was amazed Viktor hadn’t ended up in Kumamoto, to be honest, but he’d been so pleased about walking in on “his cute students bonding” when he was babbling at her about it. She wasn’t sure when in the past few weeks she’d acquired another younger brother, but thought it was a case of sooner rather than later. 

Moreover, Yuuri did seem to like the prickly little boy and didn’t treat him with the caution Mari’d have liked him to. And Yuuri wasn’t _actually_ unable to read the atmosphere at all, so. 

Maybe it was her fault. Yurio acted like a rough person, like herself. He was focussed, she liked that. Prickly, she could understand that. Kicked things when his emotions got out of control. Mari could definitely relate to that impulse. Maybe Yuuri was drawn to Yurio’s similarities to her. Whatever it was, she’d find out anyway.

  
  
  


* * *

 

He approached her after the first few days of wary pussyfooting around. Hah, pussy. Fitting, for a boy who liked cats. 

She was smoking in the courtyard that the main kitchen led out to, squatting next to her favourite tanuki statue. 

“Don’t sit there,” she told him, as he made to sit downwind. She snorted to herself; Yuuri’d known how to sit with her since he was fourteen. Fifteen, maybe. How time flew. She patted the stone tile on the other side of her, unshielded from the wind. “Here. No smoke.”

He crouched down in bristling silence. Darted glances at her. He was as adorable as an alley cat. 

“...did it hurt?” he asked, eventually, touching his ears. 

“Huh?” Mari blanked. And then — “Oh. A little. Worth it, though. I think you know.”

He sat back on his haunches, looked at the waxing moon in the dark blue sky. “Yeah.” He sighed, and his breath looked a little like cigarette smoke. 

Mari burned through the rest of her cigarette in the wait for him to say something else.

“You’re different from katsu — from Yuuri,” he abruptly corrected himself. 

“Oh?” Mari raised an eyebrow and stubbed it out on the tanuki. It was patchy all over because of years of this abuse. 

“I mean,” Yurio stumbled over himself to explain in his thickly accented English. “Your hair, and your ears. You’re ... cool.”

That startled a bark of laughter out of Mari. It made sense, in a way. His leopard prints and tiger t-shirts, his prickly attitude. If Yurio were a Japanese boy, he’d be a Yankee. 

“Well, thanks, Yurio.” She didn’t think Yuuri had ever thought she was cool. Not in the way he thought cool was. Just because she would never be the face of Guerlain. 

“Smoking,” he said abruptly again after a companionable silence. 

She turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

Yurio reared back. “No! No! Not for me!” He had his hands up in front of him like he was trying to ward off evil. “I know it is bad for me. My body should be temple, да?” 

Mari laughed so hard she choked for a good bit. 

“But I wish,” he said wistfully, “sometimes, you know? I want to know.” And then he imitated the motions of smoking. “Look cool in movies.”

“Yeah, well,” Mari said. “Yuuri can give you the whole lecture about how your lungs turn black and then you die. Don’t start, kid.” 

The weary sigh that Yurio heaved almost, _almost_! made Mari start laughing again.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The next evening, after they’d survived _misogi_ (Mari would never admit to telling Viktor about the waterfall, not even under pain of giving up her tickets to the Kintsugi concert in December) Mari said to Yurio: “Come here. I have something for you to watch.” 

She felt sorry for him, that he did not have a room of his own properly. That he was going to lose, no matter what. He was too young and Yuuri too blind to see that Viktor wasn’t going to leave Hasetsu, not when he was only just discovering what her sleepy little town had to give. Not when he was so infatuated with her stupid little brother. 

So she sat him down in the family’s private living room, put on a DVD, fast-forwarded past the cinematic panning over giant ONE OK ROCK banners in Yokohama Arena, and watched the Yurio’s face change from impatient suspicion to pure delight as [Taka cleared his throat theatrically before screaming the trilled intro to Deeper Deeper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVTFO1ws-SU). 

Five minutes later, she paused the DVD and looked expectantly at him.

“Oh my god,” Yurio breathed dazedly. “This is _fucking awesome_!” 

“Yes,” Mari said. “It is.” 

And so she left him to it, because dinner service was still happening. 

When she came back, he had moved onto her recording of Kintsugi’s iconic Kouhaku appearance. 

“Ah, Takao!” Mari said in a slightly higher pitch than usual. “See, you look like him!” 

Yuri paused the video and turned to peer at her. “His hair is dyed.”

She rolled her eyes and sat down next to him. “So’s mine.”

“...” Yurio turned back to the recording and started it playing. “They’re good.”

“I know,” Mari said excitedly. “They’ve been together for ten years, can you believe it?”

Yurio waited for the audience banter to start up again, before saying, “He look like he’s your age. Is he?” 

Mari laughed. “He’s older than me, actually, by four years. He’s thirty-two.” 

The boy’s head whipped around so fast Mari was amazed he didn’t break his neck. “ _You’re Viktor’s age_?” 

“I’m older than him, I think,” Mari mused. “He’s a December baby, right?” 

“How you ...” Yurio trailed off. “Oh, katsu- Yuuri. Of course.”

Mari smirked at him and stretched her legs out, popping her back with a groan.

They finished watching the performance in companionable silence, Mari singing along under her breath to the classic _Doumo Konbanwa_. 

“That was really cool,” Yurio said as Kintsugi were exiting the stage to a medley of their greatest hits. “You’re cool.” Then he stopped, drummed his fingers on the table. “How —”

She waited. She was used to waiting for little brothers to get their words out. 

He shook his head. Changed tracks. “No one I know like ... this.” He gestured at the screen, frozen on Takao mid-headbang, and then at his own leopard print shirt. “They think I’m weird.” 

“Okay,” said Mari, and thought about it. “What’s wrong with weird?” 

Yurio turned to look at her, eyes a little wider. “I don’t know.”

Mari shrugged. “Weird is cool. I’m weird. Yuuri’s weird. _Viktor_ ’s weird.”

“Viktor is not cool at all!” Yurio exploded rather predictably, before visibly reining himself in. “I scare them. The others.”

Raising an eyebrow, Mari asked, “Isn’t that what you want?” 

“Yes! But — I don’t know.” 

Shrugging, Mari kneed across the tatami to the DVD player and said, “You’ll figure it out.”

She extracted the homemade DVD and was weighing their next options when Yurio drooped in a sharp jerk, before shaking himself awake. Her mouth quirked without her permission. 

“That’s enough for tonight, I think.” Mari put the DVDs back in their drawer. “You have a competition to win.”

That made him blink sleepily at her. “You don’t support your brother?”

Mari snorted. “Of course I do. But I would not be respecting him if I did not support you either.” 

Yurio shook his head, confused, pushing himself up to his feet. “You so weird. All of you.” But he paused at the door and turned almost shyly back to say, “Thanks.” 

“You’re good people,” Mari said. “Yurio.”

The boy didn’t bristle. In fact, the way he preened was kind of adorable. She’d reach out to ruffle his hair, except she remembered how much she hated that shit when she was a teenager. 

“Sleep well.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Now that they’d formed a bond, Mari felt like she had full license to tease the boy.

So the next evening, when Kaasan had delegated Yuuri to pick up more maccha powder from old Morino-san, who still harboured hopes of setting her son up with him, Mari set out a small bowl of edamame and said, "You know, Yurio, you have to stop underestimating my brother."

The way Yurio’s head snapped towards her was hilarious.

"I — what — I —” The light flush on his face and the way he was stuttering — because he did have manners, apparently, and if Mari’s guess was right, also didn’t want to make it sound like he thought highly of Yuuri. 

Oh, to be fifteen again. Except not. 

She stood and went to the shelf behind the reception desk, where her father kept the guest registers, the current box file of vendor invoices, two worn volumes of Kozure Ōkami, and an old photo album from when she and Yuuri had been kids. It was a compilation through the ages, and she flipped through to the last section, when Mari had already been on the cusp of adulthood and pissed as all hell about it. 

In the dining area, Yurio was chewing suspiciously on the end of an edamame pod. He still hadn’t quite got the hang of eating edamame yet, and Mari wasn’t about to tell him how. 

The window to the kitchen slid open and kaasan stuck her head through. “Aaah! Pick the blue album, Mari!”

Viktor appeared out of fucking nowhere like he had some kind of Yuuri radar. 

“ _Photographs_?” His anticipatory smile was full of childish glee. Mari nodded him towards the table Yurio was lounging at. “You’re the best, Mari!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Mari drawled, rolling her eyes. 

Yurio had shot up the moment Viktor sat down. 

“Gross,” sneered Yurio. “I don’t want to be here when you being gross.” 

Viktor shrugged and smiled vacantly up at Yurio. Mari always felt a little like pulling at his cheek when he smiled like that. 

“More for me, then!” he exclaimed brightly, and started flipping through the album.

A hush immediately fell, as Yurio stewed silently one mat away from them, and Viktor’s eyes got wider and wider. 

Mari knew _exactly which photograph_ he was at when he stopped and made a noise like a strangled kettle.

“Yeah,” she said casually, giving Yurio a look. “We didn’t have enough money that year for a new hakama for Yuuri, so kaasan put him in one of my old kimono from when I was five, I think.”

Yurio was practically _vibrating in place_. He was so transparent. At least Viktor was kind enough not to tease him about _this_ as well!

“So...adorable...” Viktor whispered, and pressed a finger to little Yuuri’s pudgy, silk-wrapped belly. 

“Wait til you see him in middle school,” Mari smirked, and watched as Yurio _broke_ and collapsed angrily down to the table.

“Wow, Yurio,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.” 

The smirk on Viktor’s face matched hers, and they exchanged a look of amusement. 

Yurio went red and stuttered, "I - I just want to see how loser he was!”

Mari raised her eyebrows and shut the album. “Well, if you’re going to talk like that, I don’t think we want you to see any.”

She watched as he squirmed in place, sputtered incoherently, and then subsided with a muttered, “Sorry.” 

“That’s all right,” Mari said, feeling magnanimous, and flipped to Yuuri’s junior high years.

“Oh,” whispered Viktor reverently. “My god.”

"See,” Mari said, pointing at the column that Yuuri was posed against, in one of his earlier skating costumes. “Yuuri was shorter than you at your age, but look at him now!"

The Russians exchanged looks, before Viktor ventured, “Yuuri ... isn’t very tall?”

Mari felt her eye twitch a bit; her little brother — all three of them, really — towered over her. The cheek of it. 

“I mean!” Viktor backtracked. “He’s, he’s perfectly tall enough! Very normal height, you know? Not short at all.” 

“Nikiforov,” Mari said pleasantly. “Shut up.” 

He complied immediately, only demonstrating further his suitability to marry her younger brother at some point in the future.

To reward him, Mari turned to the pictures of Yuuri's emo phase.

It had been a very funny few months: her with her intense Yankee phase, and Yuuri learning to smudge eyeliner on and begging Minako to let him bleach his hair a la Gerard Way and skate to The Black Parade, which had marched its broken way all the way to Hasetsu. 

“Wasn’t he adorable?” Mari says, smiling down at Yuuri with a side-swept fringe, dressed from head-to-toe in black. 

“He was so cute,” Viktor sighs out, resting his chin in his hands. “Oh god, he was soooo cuuuuuuuuuuuute.”

Yurio, who looked like he’d been smacked upside the head, burst out with: “THIS ISN’T CUTE, WHAT YOU TALKING ABOUT OLD MAN?” 

Viktor looked mildly nonplussed — Mari could tell him that Yurio meant something more like “wow, Yuuri was so cool, what the fuck happened”, but she wanted to see what he’d do. 

What Viktor did was to smile that stupid, vacant smile again and tilt his head, before saying, “Ah, Yura, you’ll understand when you’re older.” 

This, of course, precipitated another explosion — this time in Russian and so, of course, incomprehensible.

Viktor's way of dealing with younger people, Mari concluded, was basically to repeat what adults had probably told him when he’d been small. 

“Oi,” Mari cut in, as Viktor was saying something sing-song in a way that was guaranteed to wind up Yurio even more. “Do you want to see more photographs or what?” 

As expected, Viktor cut himself off and turned to her, eyes shining. “Yes, _please_.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It was amazing, Mari thought, what having “ _Viktor Nikiforov presents:_ ” on the headline of an event could do.

Hasetsu had flooded with tourists in the past three days; most of them were domestic ones from the nearby prefectures on the day itself, but there were enough from as far away as Sapporo, who’d flown down a day or two before Onsen on Ice. Yuutopia was entirely booked out for once, and she knew for a fact that the Toyomi up in Fukuoka had seen a mid-week bump in bookings. Hasami’d sent her a series of excited stickers in LINE.

The ryokan _and_ the restaurant had been so busy, and the boys themselves so utterly intent on winning, that Mari didn’t see much of her little brother or Yurio after the night of the photographs.

And so it came as a surprise on the afternoon itself, when all of Yuutopia’s guests had disgorged themselves onto the streets and into the Ice Castle, to have the quiet, slow peace shattered by the front door slamming open.

Yurio went by in a blur as he stomped through the front door and past the reception into the corridor leading to the family residence, leopard-print suitcase scraping against the uneven wooden planking of the floor. 

“Oi,” she called. “Pick it up when you’re on the tatami.”

The incoherent growl of rage had Mari raising her eyebrow — and hang on, wasn’t the Onsen on Ice exhibition still going on? 

Curiosity piqued, she followed him through to the private residence.

He did lift his suitcase up once he was on tatami, she noted with approval.

“Leaving so soon?” she drawled, leaning against the jamb of his door.

Yurio had thrown his case open and was now darting about the storage room, throwing his things into luggage haphazardly. 

“Fuck,” he swore, before his teeth clicked together and he swallowed hard. His eyes were a little red when he looked up at her. “No point. Katsudon won. I must train harder.” He ducked his head back down to his packing.

“Mmmmm,” Mari hummed, and tiptoed around the piles of clothes to kneel next to Yurio’s suitcase. His packing technique was abysmal. Rolling up a t-shirt, she said, “Sure. Doesn’t mean you should abuse your stuff like this, though. Have you booked a flight?”

Yurio gaped at her. “You bad as that crazy nose-bleeding —”

“Hey,” Mari cut in. “Think about what you’re going to say next.” 

“GRAAAAARGH,” bellowed Yurio, and then he muttered grudgingly, “Sorry.”

He really did remind her of herself as a teenager. A bit more shouty, but the sentiments were there. 

Mari handed Yurio his phone. “Book your flight with our wifi now. I’ll ... sort this out.” 

They worked in silence, Yurio cursing under his breath at Aeroflot. As she rolled t-shirts and grimaced at the sweaty costume crumpled in the suitcase, she let the realisation that her little brother had won Viktor on his own strength float proudly to the surface of her thoughts. And that Yurio had in all probability just walked out before the event ended. 

“Yurio. Put your costume in here yourself,” Mari said, passing a plastic bag over to him. 

He grunted, tapped forcefully at his screen, and let out a triumphant “Ha!” before sliding over the very recently cleared mats to the suitcase. And when she had him captive next to her, she deliberately asked, “So, running away, huh?” 

His head jerked up, eyes wide for a moment. Then they narrowed and he bared his teeth. “No! No point to stay!” 

“Hn.” Mari resisted the urge to bare her teeth back at him. “Your coach, Yakov, he knows?” 

“Yakov definitely watch,” Yurio groused, then paused midway through tying the bag up, looking suddenly horror-stricken. “Ugh, he _say so much_.” 

“I can imagine,” Mari said nonchalantly, nodding at him to finish the packing up. 

“Ugh,” said Yurio, and Mari laughed a little.

They didn’t exchange numbers, when she dropped him off at the train station, though he did offer an awkward smile. Mari could get in touch with him via Yuuko if she had to. She didn’t really want the number of someone more than a decade younger than her anyway. 

Mari watched him disappear behind the doors of the station, the leopard-print _everything_ receding from view, before lighting up a cigarette and starting up the van again. The wind ruffled at her hair through the open window as she drove back up through Hasetsu, the engine’s purr as smug as her thoughts about how she’d get Yuuri to sign all kinds of paraphernalia. 

She had months to go.

  
  
  


  
  
  


***

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> okay I had a joke I wanted to make about how mari didn't need yurio's number because SHE ALREADY HAS HIS NUMBER, if you know what I mean, but it was such an english joke it wouldn't have worked. /sobs
> 
> the russian catnip joke is courtesy of alykapedia
> 
> you might notice this is part of 2 series: mari fic & the sister act. this categorisation is mostly bc i didn't want to put (don't) give a damn in a series called "sister acts" (coming to you sometime .... sometime, to contain mostly just ficlets with alykapedia's & my headcanons re: victuuri & their sisters).
> 
> ANYWAY! if you liked this, please consider also[reblogging it from here](https://forochel.tumblr.com/post/164529992992/the-sister-act-i-forochel-yuri-on-ice)! thank you!


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